About CD, DVD and Blu-ray Duplicators
April 11, 2008 | Duplication Systems
Duplicators come in three basic configurations. Tower duplicators, Rack-mount duplicators and automated duplicators.
Tower duplicator
CD, DVD and Blu-ray Tower duplicators hold between 1 and 15 drives in a single enclosure. There are systems that use a “daisy-chain” cable which allows additional towers to be connected and operate off one disc image across 200 machines (the highest tested was 2000 drives). Another method of connecting towers (or rack-mounts) is using a network as the means of connectivity between towers.
Tower CD, DVD and Blu-ray duplicators contain a Power supply, fan(s), recording drives, reader*, hard drive* and a controller. They can also have a USB/Fire-wire connection depending on the configuration.
The Controller is really the brain of the standalone duplicator, be it tower, rack-mount or automated duplicator. The controller has a 2 line LCD screen (or LED indicators) with a keypad for inputting instructions to the controller. The CD, DVD and Blu-ray duplicator controller has built-in memory to store configurations and to buffer the read / write stream. This is not to be confused with a built-in hard drive.
Hard-drives offer two important features: buffering the read/write stream by copying the disc image to hard drive. This eliminates issues with the read/write stream being interrupted by speed differences between the reader and the writer. The second feature is disc images can be saved and labeled using the keypad. This allows for pulling up different disc images and burning them over to endless amounts of discs. No reader required. The catch being the image has to be loaded into the hard drive and then recorded to the disc. This cycle only happens once. After that it burns at the same time or faster demanding on the size of the files.
Some other features include track extraction, this feature allows you to extract tracks and store them on the hard drive, building a music compilation. Most support multiple language support ( Spanish being an important feature in many parts of the world).
Cooling is important for high cycle recording. The more fans the better. The power supply has a fan (or should) but that fan does not really count in overall cooling. It’s job is to cool the power supply which creates it’s own heat. At at least one additional fan as a minimum for a low volume system (5 drives and less) 4 for high volume (7-11). Drives start to malfunction without excellent cooling.
USB and Fire-Wire connections provide means of using a single CD, DVD or Blu-ray drive to master a disc connected to a PC or Mac. It does not provide a connection to the hard drive. It’s of limited use in most applications.
Rack-mount CD, DVD duplicator
Rackmounts are essentially a CD, DVD, tower duplicator turned on it’s side with the drives re-oriented. They provide a means of grouping a large number of duplicators together stacked one on top of another. They require special rails (usually not included) and a rack enclosure. There is some variations in racks so the idea is you match your racks rails to your unit and not the other way around.
Besides the standard rack-mount there exists a class of “live” recorders that can record audio and video to a hard drive (or directly) to CD or DVD disc. several are networkable or daisy-chainable.
You pay a premimum for rack-mount enclosures: they are specialized. They become higher when additional drives are added (2U-8U) 9 drives is a big system.
Automated CD, DVD and Blu-ray duplicators and publishers
- Standalone CD, DVD and Blu-ray duplicators and publishers (Controller Based): Controller based duplicators are the most simple of the automated duplication systems. Like their tower duplicator brothers they use a special controller (mini computer) that manages the duplication process. Some even incorporate printer systems into the duplicaton process to create a complete duplication-printing system called a “Publisher” One of the most convenient systems is a networkable system like R-Quest. All the advantages of standalone and the features of PC connect. Essentially the automated duplicator appears on the network under it’s own IP address like a network printer and you send jobs to it. Cabled or wireless (you would have to set up the network). The faster the better. Of course the system caches the file locally so it’s not trying to pull it at the same time as recording.
- PC connected (some support Mac): PC connected systems use the PC (or Mac) to control the robotics, recording and printing. PC connect are sort of the poor man’s auto duplicator. It’s not that they are inexpensive but they rely on the other part of the system that makes or breaks it.
- Embedded PC: Embedded systems are true turn-key solutions. They have the software and optimized hardware for the purpose of running the CD, DVD and Blu-ray duplicator and printer. Usually they are networkable. Almost all are running on a Microsoft OS so that adds to the cost of the system. Controller based systems do not have this limitation. Licensing actually costs more then the hardware.
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